- Dialogue of ministry in Angola; a land rising from past challenges -

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Historic City Series: Huambo

With its
public parks, open-fronted villas and pavement cafés, Huambo has been said to
feel more European than African. Add the Mediterranean climate and the
tree-lined streets and you can see why the Portuguese called the city Nova
Lisboa (New Lisbon) after their own capital.

Located
in the country’s lush central highlands, among hundreds of thousands of
hectares of rich agricultural land and connected to the coast by the Benguela
railway, Huambo was once a wealthy and successful city and was even planned to
replace Luanda as the country’s capital.

Huambo
receives its name from Wambu, one of the 14 old Ovimbundu kingdoms of the
central Angolan plateau. The Ovimbundus, an old tribe originally arrived
from Eastern Africa, had founded their central kingdom of Bailundu early as the
15th century. Wambu was one of the smaller kingdoms and was hierarchically
under the king of Bailundu and came of interest through the advent of the
construction of the Benguela Railway by the Portuguese. Though the kings of Bailundu and Wambu
(particularly Ekuikui II and Katiavala I) opposed the penetration of the
railway by ambushing workers and settlers, they were eventually subdued by the
Portuguese Army and Huambo was officially founded on 8 August 1912 by
Portuguese General José Mendes Norton de Matos.

Huambo
was found to be a strategic place for many reasons. A benign climate (greatly
due to its high altitude, 1,700m) and the presence of abundant water resources
in and around made of it an ideal spot to have a hub on the railway.A rail system was devised by the British
entrepreneur Sir Robert Williams as the easiest and cheapest way to link the rich copper
mines of Katanga (Shaba) in Belgian Congo to the Angolan port of Lobito on the coast from which
the mineral could be exported; the Lobito bay was admittedly the best natural
seaport in the whole continent.

By
the 1920s Huambo already was one of the main economic engines of Portuguese Angola. It had
some important food processing plants, served as the main exporting point for
the Province's considerable agricultural wealth and was also known by its
numerous educational facilities, especially the Agricultural Research Institute
(currently part of the Faculty of Agricultural Science).

Decades
of war, however, stunted Huambo’s ambitions of greatness. The city was a major
flashpoint between the ruling MPLA and the rebel group UNITA and it saw some of
the worst fighting in the country. Its beautiful buildings were devastated, the
countryside peppered with landmines, and hundreds of thousands of people were
driven from their homes.

In Huambo’s heyday during the 1960s, it was known as
the “granary” of Angola and a major exporter of products such as beans and
maize. The legacy of war and landmines still looms large in the province,
however, and the majority of farming is subsistence and small scale. Analysts
predict that it will take time to relaunch Huambo as a major agriculture
exporter, but in the meantime the city is marketing itself as an eco-city. Home to the country’s Institute of
Agricultural Research and Faculty of Agricultural Science, Huambo is the
national leader in environmental matters.

It also has the Casa Ecologia, an environmental
study and education venue, and the park in the city center with its Estufa Fria
(greenhouse), which is to be redeveloped and expanded to become a base for
researching and preserving indigenous plants.

In another
reinforcement of its ecological importance, the province has been chosen by the
government to pilot a project aimed at reducing land degradation. The scheme,
in partnership with the Global Environment Facility and with input from the
United Nations, aims to reduce unsustainable agriculture, stop deforestation,
prevent overgrazing and promote better environmental practices, particularly among
subsistence farmers. (Wikipedia, Sonangol Universo Magazine)

What is the CEML Hospital?

CEML (Centro Evangelico de Medicina do Lubango) is a church-related healthcare institution in the southern Angolan city of Lubango which provides medical services for an estimated 50% of Angolans who currently have no alternative coverage.